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<.'1" \I'") t~'~ 0J Introduction l..;;,uJ (.~,) The staff of the Colorado Water conservation Board has recently received complaints concerning irrigation water shortages in the area of Garcia, Colorado. These complaints have been coupled with allegations by some residents of the area that their water rights have been stolen or sold from them without their knowledge. Specifically, the costilla Estates Development Company is alleged to have obtained ownership of the water rights of the Manzanares and Madriles Ditches through dubious means sometime in the early 1900's. A detailed and lengthy investigation of these problems has been completed. Garcia is located in the southern portion of the San Luis Valley in the costilla Creek watershed and in Water District 24. The area was part of the original sangre de cristo land grant. Attachment 1 is a sketch of the area showing the pertinent features involved in the investigation. costilla Creek is an interstate stream, which heads in New Mexico and crosses the Colorado-New Mexico stateline three times before it empties into the Rio Grande. The use of its waters is apportioned between irrigators in Colorado and New Mexico by the Costilla Creek Compact, which was adopted in 1944 and amended in 1963. r These complaints are not the first of this nature to be made by residents of the Garcia area. In 1935, a letter was written to Governor Edwin C. Johnson, in which allegations were made against the costilla Estates Development Company and assistance was requested. The matter was discussed but not resolved. This is unfortunate because resolution of the situation would have been much easier at that time. My investigation included a trip to the San Luis Valley during July 17-19, 1974, to interview residents of both Garcia and Jaroso and local water administration officials. Information supplied by the local people was augmented by research, which included costilla county records, compact negotiation files of the Colorado Water Conservation Board, Colorado and New Mexico water right adjudications, materials of the Colorado Historical Society and the Western History Section of the Denver Public Library, and records of both the U. S. circuit Court and the District Court for Colorado.